Synopsis: Robby has been developing and governing the development of global standards since 1998. He is an effective leader who has launched and managed multiple initiatives, has made numerous technical contributions, and is passionate about the value and importance of market-driven open consensus standards. He has served on multiple IEEE Boards and Standing Committees, including the IEEE Standards Association (IEEE-SA) Standards Board, Future Directions Committee, and Technical Activity Board (TAB) Committee on Standards. His current roles include VP for Market Incubation and Business Acceleration on the IEEE Standards Association (IEEE-SA) Board of Governors (BoG); Chair of the IEEE-SA Open Source Committee, Chair of the joint Education Activity Board (EAB) and IEEE-SA Standards Education Committee, and Chair of the C/SAB Standards Committee.
Learning Technology Standards: Robby became involved in international standards in 1998 via the IMS Global Learning Consortium, the IEEE Learning Technology Standards Committee (IEEE LTSC), ISO/IEC JTC1 SC36, and the CEN/ISSS Learning Technologies workshop. Chaired the IEEE LTSC for eight years, was vice chair for eight years, and am on its Executive Committee. Contributed to numerous standards (see publication list) and have collaborated and worked across numerous standards development organizations and industry consortia including the W3C, Schema.org, the Learning Resource Metadata Initiative, Postsecondary Education Standards Council (PESC), and MedBiquitous. Learning technology is now a multi-hundred billion USD global industry that touches everyone who has taken an online course or training. The IEEE LTSC (and others) created the interoperability and data standards that made this possible. In 2018, Robby helped start and in 2019 was the first conference chair for the Industry Connections Industry Consortium on Learning Engineering, and he has recently helped launch and is a board member of the IEEE ISTO Adaptive Instructional Systems consortium.
IEEE Computer Society: Robby has served on the IEEE Computer Society Standards Activity Board since 2002 and on its executive committee as its P&P chair, Vice Chair, Chair of the C/SAB standards committee that sponsors and mentors work not covered elsewhere in the Computer Society, and (now) as chair of the Industry Engagement Committee. In these capacities Robby has worked with leaders from all IEEE Computer Society standards committees, including 802, Software Engineering, Microprocessors, Design Automation, and Cybersecurity, with other standards organizations, and with working group and chairs from China, Korea, Italy, the US, and India. In his first few years on the Board, Robby was tasked with and succeeded in enabling the Board to act as a Computer Society Board while acting separately as an IEEE standards committee, reporting directly to the IEEE-SA Standards Board. As P&P Chair Robby revamped and streamlined the Board’s policies and procedures and supported the development of P&P for Computer Society standards committees. As C/SAB Chair Robby has helped establish new IEEE Standards Committees in AI, Data Compression, Smart Manufacturing, Functional Safety, Blockchain, and Online Gaming.
IEEE and IEEE-SA: Robby has served on the IEEE SA Standards Board (SASB), on many of its standing committees (NesCom, RevCom, ICCom, PatCom) and on the IEEE Standards Association Board of Governors (BoG). He is currently a member of the SASB. During this service he played an instrumental role in developing and launching IEEE-SA Open as a member of the SASB and BoG and was the first and only chair of the IEEE Open Source Committee (OSCom). He revitalized the joint EAB/IEEE-SA Standards Education Committee and facilitated the development of the online Working Group Chair Fundamentals course, which in 2020 was the number one title on the IEEE Learning Network. As an ICCom member Robby developed “abridged P&P” for Industry Connections projects and as BoG VP for Platform and Infrastructure Robby helped remove roadblocks to releasing the new IEEE myProject standards development platform and to replacing join.me with WebEx and making WebEx available for all standards work when meetings went virtual do to the COVID-19 pandemic. Robby has represented the IEEE-SA in the IEEE Future Directions Committee and on the IEEE-SA Corporate Advisory Group (CAG) and served on a variety of governance and strategy ad hocs created by the BoG, SASB, and its Standing Committees.